<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>i need a place to hide by jackson_potter179</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24373321">i need a place to hide</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackson_potter179/pseuds/jackson_potter179'>jackson_potter179</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ask 101|Love101, Aşk 101 | Love 101 (TV 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, F/M, Kerem deserves a hug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 00:41:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,082</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24373321</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackson_potter179/pseuds/jackson_potter179</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A character study of Kerem</p><p>Or</p><p>Kerem learns what love is</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kerem/Eda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i need a place to hide</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>"By now, she'll have had two beers, her cheeks will be red<br/>she'll say the craziest things<br/>she's just..<br/>she'll start laughing at the things I say<br/>in that special way of hers<br/>if i'm lucky she might tell me something she's never told anyone before<br/>and I don't want to miss a second"</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kerem grew up knowing obedience and distance because they were the lessons his father taught him. </p><p>There were no fishing trips, football games or passing the ball from glove to glove like most children received. It was quiet dinners and barked orders. Patronising comments and questions that weren’t ever meant to be answered. Rooms filled with men that pawed at any scraps his father would provide and small comments from his mother that were shut down faster than they could be said.</p><p>His military stance was adopted before he hit double digits. It showed a direct deference of power, conceding like a good soldier awaiting orders from a lieutenant. </p><p>What his father didn’t know was that he was trying to hide his white knuckles and clenched fists.</p><p>That was the stance Kerem took whenever they balance of power was unclear. A default setting that could not be undone - stamped into him like a branding on a cow.</p><p>From a young age Kerem knew his true power lied in brute force and violent impulses. The first time Kerem hit anything he was 7. </p><p>It was a forgettable evening when his father had mocked him in front of his circle of henchmen; what it was about never mattered. That night was different because instead of tuning it out it was like the noise was blocked from going out the other ear. Something was constricting they movement because it was like all the air in his chest was caught and every part of him blurred together in a huge mass of hatred and humiliation.</p><p>It was his desk lamp that took the hit. A beautiful mosaic piece with hues of blue and purples that would create stories on his roof at night.</p><p>The accompanying smash when it hit the ground was more satisfying for Kerem than any light show.</p><p>Breaking things was easy. When the anger and frustration built inside of him letting it out with his fists was as simple as breathing - and came just as naturally. It became almost uncontrollable the way it took over him. He would never breathe a word of it to anyone else but sometimes he scared himself with what he could do.</p><p>It became easier to hit someone instead of something.</p><p>Finding reasons to fight was effortless. The punches he took in return were inconsequential – it would all just blur together to be one intense pain that never outweighed the pressure in his chest. It wasn’t until Kerem fought for someone other than himself for the first time that he realised that his fists could be something more than thoughtless weapons. Seemingly defenceless men where the odds were so bad not even Osman could not sell them, or women who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. In those cases, the crunch of bone was always more satisfying.</p><p>Breaking things was easy – protecting things was the hard part. </p><p>It wasn’t until Kerem had something he wanted to protect that he found this out.</p><p>Fighting was simple because the rules were black and white. One person wins and one person loses - and everyone walks away with the ball in the chest just a little bit less tight (for a little while). Talking was hard.<br/>
</p><p>When you grow up in a house where questions are asked to mock, and the wrong answer has bad consequences you learn to speak clearly or not at all. The bullshit that Sinan waxed annoyed him most of all because none of it made any sense. It was like every sentence was a riddle and Kerem didn’t have the patience for that. That was why he liked fighting as a means to an end - there’s no way to misunderstand a punch to the face.</p><p>It wasn’t until he was sitting in her bedroom with the lights off and the curtains open and a girl in his arms that Kerem realised his hands didn’t always have to hurt. 

</p><p>It’s not until a day later that Kerem realises that was the first time he could remember that someone had touched with an emotion that wasn’t anger. And it had felt better then anger. He breaks his desk drawer when he thinks about it for too long, because at 17 he can’t tell the difference between anger and sadness.</p><p>Or maybe he can but he doesn’t want to face it.</p><p>It’s hard to be faced with the truth. Because the truth he discovers is that everything he had been fighting for was crap. His anger could be tossed aside when compared and the feeling of protecting strangers paled in comparison to the need to protect what was truly yours.</p><p>He thinks back and smiles when he remembers first punching Burak, partly because it is still a satisfying memory but mostly because the surge of anger that overcame him was a shadow of what it could become. And yet at 17 it felt like the most powerful thing in the world. </p><p>It wasn’t until he was able to hold Ada in his arms and call her his that he realised there was nothing he would not do for her. For the love he never thought he would deserve or earn. For a love that asked for nothing in return. His understanding of love was transactional - if you could not bow to the whims of those who loved you they would leave.</p><p>But to hold her in his arms and to have her not flinch from his hands – fighting, hurting hands – while she asked for nothing was a gift he didn’t know he needed. </p><p>Fighting was easy. Loving was harder.</p><p>Kerem had never experienced was love truly felt like – at least not what he thought it should be. He thought his parents may love him in their own way, but it was never in a way that was good. Kerem fought so he wouldn’t have to feel. Anger was easy, it could come up and mask anything else. It wasn’t until Kerem was forced to feel those other emotions that he became truly afraid. To feel this strongly - truthfully, he was more scared of Ada than she could ever be of him. </p><p>The people who became to him as family – true family, not those that shared his blood and lived in his house – they were what was worth fighting for.</p><p>There is something to be said for receiving the love of another. There is something more to be said about protecting the lives of those you love.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I watched this show in one go and fell in love with the characters. I wrote this fic at 2:30am. This show deserves a lot more credit.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>